OS09/Transcript
This is the written version of #OnlineStar's ninth episode. Flash mob In the afternoon, Sakaki Rara is sitting on the couch in her family's living room. Her little brother is playing football outside, but she is surfing in the internet with her father's notebook while listening to music too. Rara has opened her VirtNet account and just commented a blog post before switching to her private messages. The last chat, she had with her cousin was a week ago, and Mai didn't reply to any of her messages. "Seriously, Mai-chan, what are you doing?" She questions aloud, "You can't even answer a single 'Hi!'?" She switches to her cousin's public profile and curiously looks at her activities. "Maybe their internet connection is broken or similar?" Rara suggest when noticing that Mai's latest activities are even more far in the past. "Or she has got a boyfriend! Maybe that English guy! … Ruka, I think?" She sighs, "Oh, I definitely need to ask." She puts down the computer and raises, "Mum! We need to talk about something!" The opening starts. April knocks at Mai's room's door before entering. Luca follows her and both quickly notice their best friend who is laying on the bed, reading a book. "Seriously, Mai-chan! I did not mean that seriously!" April exclaims when entering the room. Mai smiles a bit, "Um… What?" "Breaking your leg!" "… It's not broken?" Mai replies, more as question than a reply. "But still!", April sights, "So, did you miss Kira's live?" "Kira's live..?" "Weren't you going to go to it?" Luca asks. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I did. Of course, I did." "Well, it was great, wasn't it? I really love Kira's new song!" April starts. "Too bad that VirtNet hasn't released any recording programs for the VirtReality." Luca comments, "Though, they have a program, right? Kira somehow needs to record her videos." "Exactly. I hope it doesn't take much time until the release." April agrees, "The live stream of the press conference too! It was recorded and streamed. They're holding something back! How mean!" "Did you get yourself a new computer by now? Your old laptop might isn't even VirtReality…" She stocks," Connectable…" April had noticed Mai's new computer. "… Isn't that-" Luca, now having noticed it as well, starts. "How the hell did you get that?!" April exclaims loud, causing her best friend to shrink. "That model isn't even close to release!" "That's VNC-39. The release date is set in next January! That model shouldn't even be finished developed." "It's CPU beats every existing model on the market today!" "And the RAM too! It's a whole new technology level, going by the announcement trailer." Luca adds. "Maybe Kira is using that model too, I'm sure that her videos take lots of-" "But how did Mai get one?" "Well…" "Are you keeping it for Kira?" "How did you come up with that?" "Um… No… I…" "Oh, so you know Kira-chan? How awesome!" April continues, "But wait. Then, you surely would have told us." "So…." Luca starts. "How did you get it?!" The twins ask synchronic; and their best friend once again shrinks. "Well…" Mai starts again, "You know… That's…" "Oh, come on! I wanna know!" April begs. "We have to know!" Luca adds. "We're your best friends!" The two say synchronic again. "Well… Please… That's… I kind of don't know it by myself." Mai finally replies. "Huh?" April is confused, "I one day got the computer per post. I think that someone did a mistake and it wasn't meant to be send to me, but I got it." "So, you accidentally got a test object?!" April exclaims, "I thought you'd be unlucky and clumsy and not the darling of the goddess of fortune!" "Um… Could be?" Mai replies, "Although, I can't really follow you." While the twins continue fangirling Mai's new computer, Mai notices something, "By the way… Originally, someone told mum that he'd be working for a company named 'OS', like the program… But how is VirtNet related to it?" She wonders, "Maybe, Hirota-san really knows what's behind the OnlineStar program. He has to!" In the late evening, Mai finally answers Rara's calls. Said teenager is sitting in her family's garden and watching her little brother playing football, she casually writes with friends and just started another try to reach her cousin. This time, the image of Mai appears. "Hello!" Mai greets her cousin. "Oh, the great Sakaki Mai finds a second to talk to me?" Rara ironically replies. "… Great Sakaki Mai?" "Girl, I've tries to call you in the last - let me count" She starts counting with her fingers, but when reaching five, she stops, "It feels like months since we last talked! I stagnate here!" "You've been living in Niigata since a while." Mai states, "How come that you only noticed now?" "Because I usually can talk to you every day. What has happened? Are you and Ruka a pair now?" On Rara's video screen, Mai blushes, "NO!" She exclaims, "No, no, no! Never! April and Luca are almost siblings to me!" "…Oh." Rara seems to be unhappy about the reveal, "Nothing? Really? Not even a small interest?" "NO!" "To bad. But what's up then?" "Nothing special. Just… school." "Oh. Well, did you go to Kira-chan's live concert?" "Huh? Uh, yeah." Mai replies, "Why?" "How was it? I can't find any videos!" Rara sighs unhappy before taking her cup of tea, "That's horrible." Mai looks up, "Well, I think that Luca mentioned that there aren't any programs yet." "Luca?" "April's twin brother. His name's Luca and not Ruka." "Oh. I already wondered." Rara stocks for a second, "Nah. Too bad. I really hope that she does the events though." "Events?" "Handshake events. Quite many fans want handshake events now." "Huh? How come that you know?" "… Well, I am able to google?" "Ah. But where did you read that?" "Fan network. Wait a sec, I'll send you the link." "Thanks." Mai replies and sits back. "Handshake events? Kira really has become a real idol!" She thinks, "But… meeting those people? Uh…" Following dinner, Mai has started looking in the internet for said fan networks. It doesn't take much time until she finds one. "…That escalated quickly." She comments and logs in, using her Sakaki-Mai-2612-Account. Curiously, she scrolls through the discussions and asks where she can find the next meetings. It doesn't take much time until someone answers. "We're always looking forward to meeting new fans!" Mai reads out the last line of the reply aloud and smiles, "If you'd know…" She tells the screen, "But, nice! I might really give it a try." Time flies fast, and they day of the fan meeting approaches. The group has decided to meet in a part of the open VirtReality realm which looks almost exactly like the Radiant Garden park close to Mai's school. Kira's VirtReality avatar spawns as one of the last visitors. Unlike the last time, she has designed herself an avatar that she proudly calls 'undercover avatar'. Aside of the fact, that removing the hood would make it obvious that she is Kira Star, she is proud onto it. Once Kira has entered the realm, she quickly recognizes a few faces. "April and Luca are here!" She smiles and is about to approach them when she remembers that 'Kira' doesn't know them personally. While April seems to be in a good mood, Luca is visible unhappy. "Why again do I need to attend that with you?" He asks his sister. "Going alone is boring~" April cheerfully replies. "… That doesn't change the necessity though?" April grins, "But you listen to Kira's music too!" Her twin brother sighs, "But that doesn't mean that I want to attend-" April interrupts him, "Wait. Isn't that this Minami Yamato-guy?" She asks. Luca looks up, "You mean the student that argued with Mai?" His sister nods, "What is he doing here?" She asks rather quietly before speaking up, "Oi, what ae you doing here?" She asks him. "… You again?" Yamato asks. "Yes, it's me." April declares. "Hey, I might dislike Kira, but I could give her another chance, you know…?" "Huh?" April is slightly confused, "Did I miss something…?" At the same time, Kira curiously looks around. "Hello, are you new here?" A voice behind Kira approaches her. Surprised, Kira turns around, facing Lily who gently smiles. "…Kind off…?" The red-head replies. "Huh? How… Wait." Lily starts to smile, "Don't say, you're…" "…Kira?" She ends the sentence. "Cheater." Lily decides, "Cheater." She repeats in a slightly annoyed voice. "Huh?" "Idols don't visit fan meetings. Ever heard of this distance, a celebrity keeps?" "Um… No? Couldn't I just have planned to log in into VirtReality and happened to be here?" "… I'll let that count this time." Having noticed the two girls talking, Rara who also visits the meeting, approaches them. "Wait, aren't you Lilylight? The blogger?" She asks. Lily turns around to the girl, and so does Kira, "Yeah. Nice to meet you." "VirtNet's really awesome. I mean, wasn't virtual reality science-fiction a few years ago?" "VirtReality had been announced a few years before though." Now, the twin join the small group as well. "It has? Wow, that's awesome." Rara comments before realizing something, "But… Why didn't they release it earlier?" "Well, there is a different between releasing and announcing." Luca corrects. "And then, years later, they're releasing is a few days after the press conference." April adds, "On which they kind of fool around again." "Huh?" Kira looks at them surprised. "There are even rumours that they've got a special assignment for those fooling-around-announcements." "They've got… what?" She repeats. April nods, "Yeah. Pretty much one of those things that made VirtNet in the early days famous, aside of the SO thing." "Essu Oo?" Kira repeats. "S - O. Like the letters. English." April explains, "The president of VirtNet has never revealed his identity, but he started VirtNet all by himself. He must be a programming prodigy!" "The world is moving very fast." Lily agrees. Rara looks around, noticing the other VirtReality users, "So~ Why are you here?" She asks the other users. "Pretty much just curiosity. Kira's quite the trend right now, and I'm an idol blogger after all." Lily explains, "You?" "I wasn't able to attend her live concert though." "The tickets were sold out pretty quickly, sorry Rara, but I think that the VirtReality capacity wasn't high enough for more users… If I got that right." Kira replied. "Wait. Wait." Rara stops, "Who are you? Why are you involved into the concert planning…" Her voice fades out when she realizes that she is able to open the profile of the other user, and quickly, Rara does so. Of course, she notices Kira's profile picture and her name, "Kira? The Kira Star?!" Kira gulps, realizing that she did a mistake, "Uh… Yes…?" While the others, namely the twins and Lily gasp air, Rara asks her, "How come that you know my name?" She suspects that she knows Kira. "Well… Umm… " "Well? I'm listening?" "Eh… Let me…" Kira continues stuttering. "Maybe she read your profile? Its display name is 'Rara' after all." Luca interrupts them. "Saved." Mai's voice thinks before Kira thanks the twin, "Thank you Luca." "Oh, come on! It would have been awesome if I'd have known Kira-chan!" As the girls continue talking, or rather questioning Kira, Luca opens the VirtReality profiles of the group. First of all, he opens Kira's profile that displays her username, KiraStar, her display name Kira Star and her profile picture - everything's normal. Lilylight, with her display name being Lily and her profile displaying a bluenette anime girl that's singing on a stage. He switches to the user 'GossipGirl', Rara, who uses a selfie of herself and whose display name is indeed 'Rara'. "Everything like it should be." Luca thinks, before opening his twin sister's profile which is named 'Shigatsu-chan'. Luca translates it into English, April, which is her display name. However, her profile doesn't reveal her identity but only a video game controller. The final profile, he opens is his own. "LP0819." He reads out in his mind and clicks onto the skyline of Tokyo which is his profile picture. His displayed name is LP0819 too. "How does she…?" He thinks, looking at Kira. On Sunday, the twins and Mai are sitting in a café in Akibahara. While April is drinking her unicorn-themed milk shake, her brother is reading a book. Mai is listening to April's story about an upcoming game that's linked to an anime called "". While the girls are talking, Luca notices a group of teenagers walking towards a rather empty part of the plaza where the friends currently are. The majority of those teenagers wear cosplays of different anime characters. "What's happening there?" Mai asks once she notices them. "Cosplay event?" April proposes, "Too bad that I didn't know of that. I could have used by new Kira cosplay." "You've got a Kira cosplay? Where did you get that?" "Internet. I bought it from a VirtNet user whose name was GossipGirl, I think. Do you want one too? I think it was made only once." "Rara makes cosplays?" Mai repeats confused. "You know her?" "GossipGirl is the VirtNet username of my cousin." "Hey, look!" Luca suddenly says pointing towards the cosplayers. The group is collecting, and suddenly starting to dance, one after each other. "Huh? What's happening?" Mai asks. "It's a flash mob!" April explains excited, "Too bad that I didn't know…" The three friends curiously watch the flash mob while April explains Mai what an flash mob exactly is. Watching the event fascinated, Mai realizes something, "Wouldn't that be…" She mumbles, "A good idea…?" It doesn't take much time until Mai starts to realize her idea. Very soon, she has written a VirtNet post, she soon posts. "Everyone, hello! It's me, Kira Star. Today, I'd like to announce something. I am working on the B-side of Dream☆Dash at the moment, and I had got an idea earlier. I still need to finalize some things, but I want to record the music video with you! I will post more details once I've worked them out; usually, things change last hand either way. It's going to be a flash mob in a VirtReality realm, I am working on right now. Only a limited number of users will likely able to join; and I'll go by first comes first serves. I like lotteries, but my technological knowledge is not large enough to know if there is a possibility to give people with lottery wins first entrance, then to everyone else to fill up. I want to do this on my own. Look forward to it!" On Monday, Ayu and Aki are in the class room, chatting about different things. Being a little bit late, Yumi joins them too. "Hello you all!" She greets them and the other girls answer. "By the way, Ayu-chan, your VirtReality avatar looks awesome. How did you design it? It must have taken hours!" Yumi compliments. "Oh, it was my father. He works for VirtNet as a designer." Ayu replies honestly. "Eh? Does he know Kira-chan?" Mai, who sits next to the talking girls, shrinks. "No, unfortunately, he doesn't." She sighs in relief before rising and greeting the girls. After all of them greeted Mai, Ayu speaks up again, "Did you see Kira-chan's latest post?" She asks, "I really hope to be able to join them." "Same for me." Aki replied, "It would be awesome." "What about you two, Yumi-chan? Mai?" Ayu asks. "If it fits with my calendar, yes. Usually, music videos are retaken quite a few times, right? I need to study and wouldn't have much time." "I don't know yet. I still haven't gotten to use the VirtReality…" Mai starts after hesitating. Once again, she has got problems with keeping Kira as a secret. "What? You definitely have to! It's great!" Ayu advices. "I'll do so." "Well, whatever happens, Kira will definitely have problems." Suddenly, Yamato appears behind Mai, scaring her for a second. "What do you mean?" Ayu asks confused. "Easy. Many teenagers use their real appearance as VirtReality avatar. Thus, Kira would need to ask their parents for permission to film them." He claims, "Usually, those shots are for people who are eighteen and above." In the following break, Mai is sitting in the piano room, glaring at the message, Kira posted earlier. Her phone is recording her monologue as it is often doing. "And so, I might need to tell everyone that the music video won't work like that… What Minami-kun said makes sense, so… yeah." She whispers, "Oh, why is it always me who does such silly stuff?" She sighs and puts her head on her crossed arms on the piano, "Silly me…" It's raining. After school, Mai is one of the last to leave the building. While walking through the door, she is able to catch herself from tripping over the stairs in the last second. She sighs while the rain still falls. She runs through the rain and finds a rather dry spot under a tree close to the school gate directly at the street. She sighs, "Just my luck again." She says to herself while looking to the cloudy sky. The grey clouds still cover the sky's blue; no end of rain is close. She looks onto her phone's clock. "It's 6:46pm… Wait, my train should have left at…" She quickly types something onto her phone, "At 6:44. Oh, no!" She cries out, "I missed my train! Does that mean I have to walk home?" She asks herself while researching her own question, "The train at that station would be a choice." She thinks aloud, "But that'd mean that I'll need to walk through the rain… Oh, no." Mai's bad luck isn't finished yet. While she is checking the train schedule, a car is driving through a puddle on the street quickly and all the water of the puddle splashes onto Mai. "Eeeeeek!" Now wet, Mai sighs once again, "Why always me…?" Since she is wet now, Mai doesn't plan to care about the rain anymore. She is about to leave for the station when she hears her name. "Sakaki?" Someone calls from behind, Ishikawa Ren. Surprised by hearing her name, Mai sets her feet in front of the other and stumbles over them. She falls into another puddle on the asphalt. "Oh, come on!" She sighs. A hand reaches out to her. It is Ren who gives her a hand to stand up; a hand that Mai gratefully takes. "Th-thank y-you." Mai replies, "I'm sorry if the water had hit you." "No problem; it didn't hit me." The students council president replies. Unlike Mai, he has got an umbrella that protects him from the rain. "Don't you have an umbrella? Or a rain jacket?" He asks slightly surprised. "No, I don't." Ren smiles a bit, amused by the younger girl's bad luck, before returning to his casual, serious self. "Would you like to use mine? I don't really need it." Ren hands over his umbrella, and for a moment, both stand under it. "T-thank you." Mai stutters a bit. She sighs, "I suppose, I'm the only one who can't read the weather report." "No worries." Ren replies with a slight smile, "I don't need it either way. My car's over there." "Oh…" Mai now notices the car, "Thanks though." "By the way, Sakaki, may I ask you something?" "Hm?" "Have you seen the online debate over this flash mob project by the user Kira Star?" He asks. "…. Debate?" "Yes. A user started it; it seems like some parents worry that their children could be filmed without their consent. I only noticed it because I was approached about the topic as well." "I didn't know there was a debate…" Mai starts, "But I don't know if it makes sense…" "Well, I suppose that was natural for something to happen to someone like her." After pausing for a moment, he continues to speak, "Well, I have to go. Good-bye." While Ren is walking to his car, Mai sighs, "Still a jerk." Mai doesn't notice the smile that appeared on her senior's face. In the late evening, when Mai has already fallen asleep, her computer blinks shortly announcing a new message to her. Unhappily, she sits up and checks the message in the "business folder" of the computer's modified messages application. It's from Arata. Still sleepy, Mai reads out the message loud. "Dear Mai, I've noticed that some debates about possible legal problems of your newest project. Don't worry. That's covered with VirtReality's terms of usage. No one is reading them either way; so it's not a miracle that they don't know. As long as you're crediting everyone in the credits, the avatar copyright (if someone has actually gotten farer than just using the auto application to design avatars. We're working on that too btw) isn't a problem either. Have fun. Did I forget something? I don't think so. Sincerely, Hirota Arata… Blablabla." Mai finishes. She blinks twice, needing a bit time to realize the content of the message, "Seriously? He could have told me earlier? I was about to call it off tomorrow!" She says, "… But well, I didn't read the terms of usage either." She sighs, "And he didn't reply to my messages on purpose! He forgot the origins of the program and the computer on purpose as well! Mean! He can join Ishikawa-senpai in the jerk club." "In the end, everything went well. Because everyone was doing silly stuff, recording the MV took much more time than usual. Even though it was crazy, funny and chaotic; I'm proud onto the result." On her computer, she opens the online video of the MV named "Kira Star - Kimi mo Aitai". She starts the video and watches it. Kira, alongside a lot of other persons, is standing on a large meadow. She waves to the camera before the song starts with Kira starting to perform. Very soon, she is followed by the other users in the realm. After she has watched the video, Mai stands up and leaves her room; her mother had called her to come to eat dinner. While she is leaving, several positive comments (telling Kira that the filming was fun, the video is great and other things) pop up below the video. The ending starts. Category:User:Millyna Category:OnlineStar Category:Transcripts Category:OnlineStar Transcripts